Missing woman, Leyla Namiranian, phones recovered

RICHMOND, Va. (WTVR) New developments in the disappearance of Leyla Namiranian, an Altria employee last seen in early April.

Police said they have interviewed a man they call a person of interest, and they say he has not been cooperative.

“I`m not at liberty to discuss that,” said Lt. Randy Horowitz with the Chesterfield Police Department when CBS 6 asked for the man’s name.

But Horowitz said they identified him as a person of interest soon after 41-year-old Leyla Namiranian disappeared on April 4.

Horowitz said within days, they searched the man’s apartment in the 3800 block of Chamberlayne avenue in Richmond, and seized his car.

“And we continue to hold that vehicle, we have searched that vehicle extensively and we are waiting on the results of tests we have conducted on it,” he said.

Police won’t say how Namiranian, who lived in a Midlothian neighborhood, met the man who resides at the Fern Tree apartments, but only said that the two were well acquainted.

“They`re not strangers… I`m not going to say the connection,” said Horowitz. ”They`ve known each other for awhile.”

Police also confirmed that two of her cell phones were recovered within one week of her disappearance.

“One was in the roadway, and another one was lying in a ditch adjacent to the roadway in the same general area, but within a few miles of eachother,” said Horowitz.

Namiranian was last seen leaving her job at Altria around 6:30 p.m. Wednesday April 4. Police believe she went home, but never showed up for work on Thursday.

Horowitz said her car was there, but there was no sign of a forced entry or a struggle at her house and no blood found anywhere inside the home.

We asked if an arrest was imminent.

“We await the results of forensic testing and hopeful it will lead us to make an arrest but right now there`s nothing,” he said.

Police are still calling this a missing person’s case, because Namiranian has not been found.

CBS 6 went to the man’s apartment several times tonight, knocked on his door but there was no answer. Leyla’s ex-husband, Babak Namiranian, told CBS 6 Leyla had spoken to her brother the same day she disappeared. He said Leyla told her brother she had met someone online and planned to meet him. “Now, who that person was and how they were supposed to meet, I have no idea… but when the brother mentioned the person she had met online, especially the timing, that`s the only thing that may make sense,” Namiranian told CBS 6 back in April. For full coverage of Leyla’s case, click here.